


Every Strand of Data

by TheWhiteLily



Series: Season Four Premiere Flashfic [5]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character perspective on a canon scene, Episode Related, Episode: s04e01 The Six Thatchers, Gen, POV Sherlock Holmes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-06
Updated: 2017-01-06
Packaged: 2018-09-15 05:53:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9221915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWhiteLily/pseuds/TheWhiteLily
Summary: Sherlock's perspective on the London Aquarium





	

“After what you did?” demanded Mary.

“Mary, no!” cried Sherlock... too late.

Hands shaking in the dappled blue light, Vivian pulled out the gun whose presence in her purse had become obvious not long after he arrived. She pointed it—sure enough to do the job—straight at Mary, who had so foolishly drawn her attention.

But of course she wasn’t going to shoot Mary. No one was allowed to shoot Mary, not on his watch. Sherlock had sworn a vow to protect her, and protect her he would.

He'd always been very good at taking up all the space in a room, at driving the presence of other people from someone’s mind. Perhaps he could get Vivian to hand over the gun, perhaps not—but he could certainly get her to forget at whom she’d previously been aiming it.

“Well, you handled the operation in Tblisi very well,” he said. “For a secretary.”

And then he took her to pieces—ruthlessly, methodically—ignoring Mary’s warning protests from beside him. He knew what he was doing. Wind her up just enough and she would snap, her despair turning inward—or less likely outward, but it was impossible to tell for sure. Either outcome was preferable to the alternative—a coolly judged shot, in the hopes she might escape, to the heart of the person she _knew_ was the most immediately dangerous in the room.

Not on Sherlock’s watch. He poured extra vitriol into his deductions until there was no more to say, nothing more he could dig out of her twisted soul and throw in her face.

“There’s no way out,” he concluded, and reached out one hand for the gun, open and certain, an empty gesture.

She wouldn’t give him the gun, that was clear. Would she let it drop? Dissolve into tears? Turn it upwards and fire?

“So it would seem,” she said, trapped. “You see right through me, Mr Holmes.”

He could. He could see the rusty gears and cogs ticking away inside her head, the careful calculations working towards the conclusion of the inevitability of her situation. Would her rage turn inward? Or out?

“It’s what I do,” agreed Sherlock. Vivian Norbury was no match for him.

She tilted her head on one side, smug and desperate to prove herself to be more than he’d insinuated.

An unlucky throw. Outward it was, then—but Sherlock had accounted for that, too, when he’d stepped forward, making himself large in her vision and dragging her buried resentments into the rippling blue light for a distinctly personal dissection.  If she was going to shoot anyone, it would obviously be Sherlock.

“Maybe I can still surprise you,” she said.

He rather thought not. Attenuate to every strand of quivering data, each of the billion lives that wove the world, and the future was entirely calculable. As inevitable as mathematics. The solution to the merchant’s paradox had never been in _avoiding_ death, but in choosing it. In considering your own life a lesser sacrifice than the ones you were protecting.

Sherlock had known _that_ since the rooftop at Barts.

“Now, come on, be _sensible,_ ” called a voice in the distant background.

Sherlock didn’t say anything. There was no point.  Either she would shoot him, or she would not; it made no difference.  

The Watsons would be safe.

And he was ready for his appointment in Samarra.

“Hmm, no, I don’t think so,” said Vivian Norbury. And fired.


End file.
